peters regeneration.

im watching castrovolva on dvd. and now that im older i cant help wondering why tom to peter was such a difficult regeneration. i know that it is established that the doctor is always a little goofey in his first episode but this one was expected, planed for, and there was even the creepy ghost of jacob marley walking around. of all the regenerations this one should have run the smoothest. i swear the older i get the more i wonder if jnt had never been offered the show, the show might never have left our airways. i truley believe that he micro managed the show to death.

GuestGuest

Subject: Re: peters regeneration. Fri Apr 10, 2009 12:53 pm

It was due to the fact that Tom was the Doctor for most viewers their whole young lives. So they decided to ease into the change, that is also why they had the Five Faces of Doctor Who prior to the first ep. of Castrovalva going out.

It was also a regeneration that occurred outside or not near the tardis. I also think it depends on the circumstances of the regenerations.

The first doctor succombed to old age and regenerated in the tardis.

The second doctor had his regeneration forced upon him in a controlled environment with a little memory wiping by the timelords.

The third doctor occurred next to the tardis, resulting in the fourth doctor having a little paranoia and dementia near the beginning.

The fourth doctor regenerated into the fifth under unusual circumstances. First there was the whole tardis within a tardis thing that caused the future doctor (in the form of the watcher) appear, foreshadowing the fourth doctor's impending death. The fourth doctor fell from an extreme height and probably had massive body damage. This coupled with being so far from the Tardis resulted in a rather difficult regeneration.

The fifth into sixth was cause by the spectrox poison, which aparantly was some nasty stuff as it almost caused the doctor to die rather than regenerate (he said it feels differently this time because the poison was perhaps almost killing faster than he could regenerate, a concept presented in the turn left episode of the 4th series). In either sense, the sixth doctor's abbrasive personality resulted from this.

This sixth doctor into seventh was in the tardis, caused by the rani, perhaps a forced regeneration to make the doctor more susceptible to the rani's tricks.

seventh to eight, hindered by the anasthesia. Resulted in massive memory loss.

8th to 9th: who knows.

9th to 10th: Inside the Tardis, but the massive damage done to him caused him to be pretty much unconsious for a whole day.

castrovalva was really really calculated marketing.... after seven years tom was everyone's doc so writing wise they wanted the audience to ease into his new persona. 10 from 9 was much the same because 9 was hugely successful and they eased into the new doc by using the companion's pov into reaquanting us with this new fella. The early jnt era was not too bad really- but after year three the writing really got quite dodgy and the production values sagged-i think it is essential that the producers do not stay too long- good or bad- it keeps the show fresh.

In tb's era just look at how radical the show's feel changed with the same actor. Gothic, campy...Operatic.